Growth is cool, but also exhausting. The absolute number of fires grows with time as does complexity. I’ve made it a habit to ask my execs not only about business performance but also how they’re taking care of their mental wellbeing. You can only push >100% for a time but burnout is real and is often a bigger problem than underperformance due to incompetence. If you’re a CEO or C-level exec I strongly recommend considering the 50% rule and strong support networks (including coaching) but the risk of burnout is still big. How do you hang on to the rocket ship? I give these three pieces of advice.

Give up the martyr complex. Director+ leaders often forget that they’re not player-coaches anymore and let themselves dive into managing tactical day to day issue. While you can and should be part of your team’s bench and operational buffer as well as an escalation path, those occurrences must be few and far between.

Hire a deep bench. As Jason Lemkin says – if you reach the end of the week and you’re exhausted, you’re missing at least one VP-level hire. Great leaders are great because they build great teams and delegate, not because they do a lot with little, especially in high growth environments.

Renegotiate operating mechanism. Shit will hit the fan and you will be pulled into situations you didn’t create and will have to apologize for. Giving up direct impact to increase your span of control is part of the job. What you should do is negotiate operating mechanisms – OKRs, frequency of meetings, dashboards and what they track – to keep yourself aware of the state of the business. It’s also ok to obsess over these things as long as that obsession doesn’t translate into micromanaging two levels down because you didn’t like the daily change in a KPI.

By now you probably know, managing in high growth is unintuitive. Learning from others, then giving yourself the space to learn and reflect, are critical for your and your team’s success.